The Emerald City has a bad case of progressive envy. If Berkeley shouts down a conservative speaker one can be certain the hecklers will heckle at UW-Madison. After Ferguson, the local Black reparations movement signed its e-mails “Ferguson to Madison.”

After Charlottesville, Mayor Soglin cast about for a statue to trash and found a memorial to the mouldering remains of the long dead Confederate soldiers at Forest Hill Cemetery who died at Camp Randall as POWs.

This petty little affront to the dead and defeated will no doubt solidify his status as a paragon of civil rights. But it saves no black lives, if that really matters. And if civil rights truly mattered, Hizzonner might have spoken out for the victims of the John Doe speech police raids, or kicked brutal dictator Fidel Castro in the cojones when the worshipful mayor met with him back in the ’60s.

Speaking of Communists, the mayor may wish to pull down Madison’s monument to that totalitarian ideology. That one squats at James Madison Park. It is dedicated to the Orwellian-named Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a band of Communists that fought for Communism in the Spanish civil war. Notable among their number was one Clarence Kailin, who never in his 90-plus years repented his Stalinism.

Let there be no mistake: no matter how benevolent the slaveholder, the “peculiar institution” could not have prospered without the whip and the chain. Communism survived as long as it did because of the secret police, barbed wire and brick walls. The same folks who cheer black-hooded Antifa terrorists wear Che’ Guevera T-shirts. They’re against hate, don’t you know.

Hate is the new term for that speech with which you disagree. If you hold that government-mandated affirmative action has run its course, you are a hater. If you believe the vote is sacred, you are a hater for requiring the voter to be a real person. If you believe porous borders are a threat … well, you get the drill.

So when a citizen of Our Town asked Madison’s uber-Progressive alders if they would hire more police to combat the largely black-on-black mayhem, guess the response she received from one alder:

“Why the hate?”

He is the e-mail sent by neighborhood watch leader Paula Fitzsimmons on August 15:

You’ve all been rather quiet, lately. Does this mean you finally realize that Madison PD is not the problem, and that you’ll be funding more police officers? If not, can I call one of you late at night when someone’s breaking into my home and the cops can’t get there fast enough? Or when this freak of nature or others like him terrorize innocents?

A citizen who was manhandled when she spoke at city council a year ago, who has legitimate concerns about the harassment of the chief and the police — you call that hate? I know Paula Fitzsimmons. She is not a hater. Frustrated by the council’s war on police, for sure. Angry? You bet. While the City was spending $400,000 to study the police, prosecuting the chief on trivial charges (he called a volatile person a name), and yielding the pulpit to the Black Lives Matter disrupters, bullets are flying in the city. Shootings are up 75 percent.

Object to the liberal agenda and you are labeled a hater just as Paula’s husband was smeared with the racist brush (wielded by Alder Dave Ahrens) for running against an incumbent alder who happens to be African-American.

8) EAST: Adult Arrested Person – 8:23 p.m. Team of MPD officers assigned as part of the Violence Reduction Plan contact two individuals in a vehicle that was not legally parked in the 3000 block of Darbo Drive and is similar to a vehicle called in earlier to 911 with information provided that an occupant was seen waving a gun. Upon contact, passenger in the vehicle (AAM, 25 year old) has an open container of alcohol and takes off running from the vehicle. While officers are chasing the passenger on foot, he tosses a gun into the bushes. After a short foot pursuit he is caught by officers and found to be in possession of 16 grams of cocaine; multiple bags. The handgun was recovered; a Walther .380, loaded (including one in the chamber, and the hammer was cocked back). Charges for possession with intent to deliver, felon in possession of a firearm, carrying a concealed weapon, resisting arrest, and a parole violation.

Folks, the Chief is working Sundays! It is worth asking:

How can we follow up to make sure the Sheriff keeps these people in jail, not out on monitoring?

How can we make sure the DA prosecutes these people and doesn’t mess up again…..?

How can we make sure the judges sentence any guilty individuals to more than minimum time to help keep our community safe?

Arresting people as part of the Violence Reduction Plan is only a small part of the process. But it’s a start. Many police officers have told me they’re tired of the revolving door.

Some believe we should solve this with social programs, that the police should stay out of it. … The City Council is the problem. The other things are not working and the bad guys know this. The actions of and inactions of the City Council are enabling them.

Notice how silent police-basher Madame Brenda Konkel (and her Progressive Dane cohorts on and off the Madison Common Council) are these days?

Madison, be prepared to sing along as we welcome the blue surge. Police Chief Mike Koval announced today a round-up of up to 60 people “who have been identified and vetted as some of our most egregious offenders and gang members.”

Over the next few weeks, those thugs “are going to be separated from our midst,” Chief Koval vows. One way or another, his police will take them into custody.

In his blog today (8-10-17), Chief Koval marveled that after every serious shooting “the same names keep coming up! Sometimes they are friends of currently affected parties to the crime, sometimes they are family members, or have children in common, or have gang ties — but the overlapping spheres of connectedness are uncanny.”

While there may not be sufficient evidence to charge these individuals with specific “shots fired” calls or a unique homicide, there is ample probable cause to arrest for other offenses. The common denominator is that all are currently wanted for various crimes or have holds entered by the Department of Corrections. Many are members of street gangs and we have knowledge that these individuals have access to guns, have threatened the use of guns or are hanging out with individuals who commit crimes with guns.

While elected city leaders dither

The police dragnet comes as elected city officials dither. This week, Common Council president Marsha Rummel said she was doing some “deep thinking” about crime. This is after chairing a committee to second-guess the police while duplicating a $400,000 study contracted out to a California firm for a study to uncover the presumed police racial bias.

Ald. Amanda Hall is “steamed.” She voted to deny paying the Chief’s legal bills incurred in defending himself against a nuisance claim filed before the PFC at the behest of Progressive Dane and Brenda Konkel.

A month ago, Mayor Paul Soglin announced a bounty would be paid for guns used in crimes. Plenty of shootings since July 11, but no takers. As Gomer Pyle used to say, “Surprise, surprise.”

Never mind; Soglin has moved on to another fad program, “Place making:” $40,000 to bring in “experts” from New York “to enhance the capacity of local groups and individuals in targeted neighborhoods to initiate, develop and implement small-scale place-making projects that build community.”

Not to forget, because it is so forgettable, the 15-point Focused Interruption initiative championed, at a budgeted cost of $400,000 this year alone, by Alds. Maurice Cheeks and Matt Phair.

Even Soglin is wise to Focused Interruption. He told alders on July 25 that gang bangers “who have no hesitation to murder, to assassinate, to kill … are not interested in employment programs or a safe community.” Ya think?

Shots fired incidents are up 75%. Just this week, a 14-year-old boy was wounded on the east side. Madison is on the path for record number of homicides. We’ve already tied the all-time record with almost five months remaining on the calendar.

Koval is acting while city elected leaders panic. “A resounding message must be sent in clear and unequivocal terms: we know who you are. Your ability to stay anonymous is no longer a luxury you can rely on and we are holding you accountable for your actions.”

Who says Wisconsin Democrats don’t have a deep bench? Dane County Exec Joe Parisi begged off. State Sen. Tim Cullen backed away. U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, out. State Sen. Jennifer Schilling, another no. While Kathleen Vinehout, Tony Evers, and Paul Soglin still equivocate, my liberal et cetera acquaintances could be forgiven for thinking they had been forsaken by that Big General Manager in the Sky.

Then, in the darkness of their long night of despair, in the depth of their political Gethsemane — like a last-minute Obama administration Cash for Clunkers bailout — came the bright shining light of Hope. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin was not dead! Near bankrupt, maybe. ($36,000 as opposed to $1.7 million in the Republican vault.) Down to their lowest Assembly numbers in 60 years. No challenger for a conservative supreme court candidate. Losing a presidential election for the first time in 32 years — to Donald Trump! But still alive! At least, technically.

For, arising phoenix-like from the ashes of defeat came one brave challenger after another, ready and able to defeat the the completely awful, widely hated, evil Koch Twin, Scott Walker. (Everybody knows he didn’t graduate from high school, right?)

First there was Bob Harlow, age 25. Then Andy Gronik, that household name. Then the lion of the Assembly (or is it the Senate?) Dana Wachs! Giants walk the earth! The very earth trembles under their big shoes. No wonder The Capital Times exclaimed, “Scott Walker is running scared.” (“Scott Walker’s running scared.”) So scared, that Republicans “are throwing tantrums.”

Wrapped around a brick, a missive from Sen. Tammy Baldwin came crashing through the transom here the Stately Manor, informing the Squire and his minions that “working families in Wisconsin and across the country are getting a raw deal.”

If it wasn’t for Tammy and the Democrats (now playing at a chi-chi cabaret near you) how would the average Squire and his white lab-coated assistants ever realize how royally screwed we are being? (Forgive the sin tax.)

The stock market is up 11.5% since January 1. Unemployment is the lowest in 16 years. Inflation is negligible. And Scott Walker is bringing 3,000 to 13,000 jobs to Wisconsin. Oh the Humanity!

Foxconn rips the heart out of the Democrats’ message, that being: Walker had failed — failed! — to live up to his ambitious “promise” of 250,000 more jobs on his watch.

Foxconn is actually BAD NEWS! Democratic hit man One Scot Ross (the spiritual successor to Graeme Zielinski) says those jobs will be so bad that workers will need suicide nets erected around the perimeter of the plant. Which leads to the other major Democrat(ic) message (perfected by Al Gore): WE ALL GONNA DIE!

That’s the problem Democrats have when jobs are created on the other guys’ watch: the jobs are never good enough.Continue reading →

Did we say the worm has turned? (Oh yes we did!) Madison alders and their enablers are turning away from harassing Police Chief Mike Koval, suspending the micro-managing and second-guessing of his sworn police officers, and toning down accusations of endemic police racism.

Glory be to God, the Madison Common Council has begun thinking about crime instead of investigating the police!

Ten homicides — none of them caused by police and all but one of them involving black victims and/or suspects — and a 53% increase in shootings will do that even to the most obdurate of liberal-progressive-socialist city leaders.

Ald. Rummel is ‘thinking deeply’

Over the weekend, the biggest worm (so far) has turned. Saturday, Common Council president Marsha Rummel confessed that she has begun “thinking deeply” about gun violence and the “homicide epidemic we are facing.”

This is progress. Previously, we noted that Ald. Amanda Hall played the little steam pot. Former Alder Brenda Konkel, progressive grand dragon of the War on Cops has quit advertising for complaints against the police. Sharon Irwin has receded into the fog of whatever she is into. Brandi Grayson is laying low.

It is a confession that the Emerald City’s fad programs, nostrums, community centers, peer counseling, and community sing-alongs aren’t working and aren’t likely to work.

Might they finally listen to the one Alder in their midst who gets it? That being Paul Skidmore, of District 9 on the far northwest side.

Skidmore boldly calls for more police, surveillance cameras in crime hot spots, and continuing the police presence in our schools.

Herein we reproduce (slightly condensed) Rummel’s e-mail to the other 19 Common Council members and the response of Alder Skidmore. Continue reading →

Today’s nuclear chuckle

Want to get rid of Kim Jong un?

Start a rumor that he has dirt on the Hildabeast.

The Crazy Lady is Back!

How Do I Contain My Rage at the Patriarchy?

Another gem from — not The Onion — The Nation! “Rage gets a bad rap in bourgeois thought.” (How many real people, outside the Havens Center, really talk like that?) Maybe Archie Bunker was right all along. “Stifle yourself,” is the answer.

What we’re reading

Madison schools spend $10.4 million and the problem is worse

Madison’s public schools ballyhooed $10.4 million behavior education program ain’t workin’. After 3 years, African-American students are 10.3 times more likely than white students to be kicked out of school, up from 8 times more likely before. The whole idea of BEP was to reduce the disparity. Sometimes, reality intrudes on liberal fantasies. Schools must teach discipline. Allowing disruptive students to continue disrupting teaches the wrong lesson. (More here.)

Why did it fail? Because “We underestimated what it takes to shift adult [i.e., the teachers] beliefs and values, shaping or reshaping mindset to be one that is more progressive and restorative in nature,” she said.”